In the previous post, we discussed how humans use inferentially connected word-based knowledge to know what they know. However, according to Dr. Fisch, inferentially connected word-based knowledge is “about the meaning of the words. This is an empirical fact. This is about how these concepts relate to each other.”
Dr. Lawrence Kuhn, understanding the implications of what Dr. Fisch said, wondered aloud, “What prevents you from cascading into skepticism where we can’t know anything? Everything is related to something else. I have no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is. So, how do I know anything?”
Of course, Dr. Kuhn was right. Indeed, while inferentially connected word-based knowledge allows humans to understand “how concepts relate to each other,” it does not allow humans to know “what the world really is.”
Inferentially connected words have no intrinsic meanings because they can be interchanged without affecting the concepts they relate to. For example, call east the west and vice versa, and the sun still rises and sets in the same direction. Call a mountain water, and the phenomena remain the same. Or, as Shakespeare put it, “A rose by any other name would smell as good.”
In Buddha’s cosmos, where there is Nothing but Mentality, “what the world really is” refers to mentality, the only perduring reality in it. In such a cosmos, the quiescent mentality of Citta is the Ultimate Reality and Truth. The quiescent mentality can be the Ultimate Reality and Truth because, without any fluctuations, neither its “realness” nor “truthness” can ever change. This is the requirement for being the Ultimate in Buddhism. To be the Ultimate Reality or Truth, its “realness” and “truthness” must be permanent.
In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha expressed his opinion regarding the use of word-based knowledge in the search for an unchanging Truth, or Cittta.
Kalama Sutta (Chinese=卡拉瑪經), also known as Kesamutti Sutta, “is a discourse of the Buddha contained in the Aṅguttara Nikaya (Chinese=增一阿含經) of the Tripiṭaka (Chinese=三藏經).” “
On the day that Buddha passed the village of Kesaputta, he was greeted by its inhabitants, a clan called the Kalamans. While the Kalamans were very happy to see Buddha, they were also eager to ask him for advice on a dilemma they faced when other gurus visited. They asked Buddha, “Many wandering holy men and ascetics pass through, expounding their teachings and criticizing the teachings of others. So whose teachings should we follow?”
In other words, the Kalamans wanted to know how to judge the holy men and ascetics who came to preach to them. They wanted to know whose teaching they could believe in. Their dilemma was that not only did the gurus’ teachings vary, but they also criticized each other. By asking the Buddha whose teachings they should follow, the Kalamans sought advice on how to identify gurus whose teachings remained unchanged, so that they could have faith in them.
In response to their inquiry, Buddha instructed the Kalamans not to rely on the following ten sources when evaluating these holy men and ascetics.
These ten instructions are (Pali expression in parentheses):
1) Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing (anussava);
2) nor upon tradition (paramparā);
3) nor upon rumor (itikirā);
4) nor upon what is in a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna);
5) nor upon surmise (takka-hetu);
6) nor axioms (naya-hetu);
7) nor upon specious reasoning (ākāra-parivitakka);
8) nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over (diṭṭhi-nijjhān-akkh-antiyā);
9) nor upon another’s seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya);
10) nor upon consideration, “The monk is our teacher” (“samaṇo no garū).
A careful examination of the list reveals that all ten items are methods of transmitting knowledge, either verbally, by writing, through tradition, or by making assumptions. Invariably, the medium through which they communicated their knowledge was the use of words. Indeed, the gurus who visited the Kalamans learned their knowledge from their teachers through the medium of words. Similarly, they transmit knowledge to their students through the medium of words.
As discussed in a previous post, “the knowledge our historical Shakyamuni Buddha gained from meditating under the Bodhi Tree was not based on word-based knowledge, such as that gained from attending school, conducting scientific research, learning mathematics, or obtaining a few degrees.” Instead, his knowledge came from direct perception, which allowed the Buddha to perceive directly the “information embedded in the mental constructs of all phenomena in the Buddha’s conscious cosmos.”
What the information embedded in the mental constructs of all phenomena tells the Buddha is “what the world is really like,” in the words of Dr. Kuhn, or “how things stand in themselves,” as Dr. Fisch describes it.
Buddha’s teachings never change because “what the world is really like,” or “how things stand in themselves,” is permanent. In other words, Buddha’s never-changing teaching was indeed what the Kalamans sought. However, as mentioned when discussing “How Do We Know How We Know,” knowledge about “what the world is really like,” or “how things stand in themselves,” cannot be gained from inference, because inferentially connected word-based knowledge can only inform “how these concepts relate to each other. “
In fact, Buddha himself experienced what the Kalamans experienced before his enlightenment. The two gurus he studied under, Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra, taught the Buddha using inferentially connected words, just as they had learned from their gurus. Therefore, just as the gurus who came to teach the Kalamans taught, the two gurus who taught the Buddha also taught differently from each other. For this reason, the Buddha refused their invitations to join their hermitages to teach their followers. Instead, he left them and their knowledge behind to search for the unchanging Truth using direct perception by meditating on his own.
Moreover, Buddha adhered to his beliefs, not teaching until he had grasped the unchanging Truth. Shakyamuni Buddha chose not to start teaching until after his enlightenment, when he had become a Tathagata and encompassed “all objects of knowledge.”
“All Objects of knowledge” means the totality of the information embedded in the mental constructs of all phenomena in Buddha’s conscious cosmos. Only when Buddha had encompassed “all objects of knowledge” could he be confident that he had all the information about the reality in the cosmos. Only then could Buddha be convinced that his teachings would never change, which was when he started teaching.
Buddha similarly asked his followers to go beyond what he taught them using words. When his followers had learned enough and were ready to change course and pursue the unchanging Truth, the Buddha instructed them to relinquish the word-based knowledge they had acquired from him, so they could complete their remaining journeys personally to search for the unchanging Truth through direct perception.
Diamond Sutra (Chinese=金剛般若波羅蜜多經/金剛經) is “a Mahāyāna (Buddhist) sutra from the genre of Prajñāpāramitā (perfection of wisdom) sutras. Translated into a variety of languages over a broad geographic range, the Diamond Sūtra is one of the most influential Mahāyāna sutras in East Asia, and it is particularly prominent within the Chan (or Zen) tradition, along with the Heart Sutra.”
In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha instructs the bhiksu (Sanskrit, commonly translated into English as a Buddhist monk, Chinese=比丘) as follows:
“You bhiksus should understand my teachings as the Parable of Raft: even Buddha Dharma must be relinquished, let alone the non-Buddha dharmas (Chinese=如等比丘, 知我說法, 如筏諭者, 法尚應捨, 何況非法).”
The parable of the raft involved a person using a raft to cross a river. Once he and the raft were on the other side, he wondered if he should continue the journey with or without the raft. Buddha suggested that he should continue without the raft.
The raft is a metaphor for Buddhist teachings. Just as the rafters who had reached the shore were ready to change course, Buddha wanted his followers to know that when they had learned enough from his word-based doctrines, they must change course by first letting go of them (Buddha Dharma). Then, they could embark on their own journeys to perceive the mental nature of reality directly, just as the Buddha did.
Again, Buddha practiced what he advised his followers. By the time he sat down at the Bodhi Tree to meditate until he reached enlightenment, he had relinquished everything he had ever had: his princely life, the lessons from the gurus, and the harsh Jainistic asceticism. By letting go of his attachments to worldly possessions, Buddha’s journey to enlightenment became easier.
That was also why, in their first encounter, Master Zhang Jia (Chinese=章嘉大師) told Master Jing Kong that “seeing through, letting go (Chinese=看破，放下) “ is the principle behind all Buddhist cultivations. In acquiring knowledge about the unchanging Truth of nature, it is better to relinquish all personal attachments and maintain a hate-free, malice-free, undefiled, and purified mind to make enlightenment easier.
Without question, Buddhism is the only education where a teacher asks his students to relinquish his teachings before graduating.
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